Sex Pistols: The Graphic Biography
by Jim McCarthy & Steve Parkhouse

And you thought Sid’s singing was bad…

Having followed the Sex Pistols as a teenager, it’s been strange to see them turn into rock legends with reunion tours, biographies, endless compilations of the same material and now the graphic novel.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: it’s utter rubbish. McCarthy has a long and distinguished career as a writer, but this looks like he’s simply taken some of the best bits of Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming – red leather New York Dolls, Grundy, Sid, the Thames boat trip, etc – and thrown them into the mangler. The Pistols’ image and memory was best served by black-and-white photographs that capture their youth, image, rebellion and gleeful celebration of themselves. Artist Parkhouse captures none of this, making Rotten look too muscular and bloated, Cook and Jones resembling something like lawnmower parts, while only Sid, as always, gets any time spent on him. That said, his full-page death and being taken to Heaven by God (“I’ll look after him now”) plumbs the depths of taste.

This is the fourth Omnibus music graphic novel and, like the Sex Pistols’ recording career, they seem to be playing to the law of diminishing returns. Avoid this at all costs.

ISBN 1846095085

Reviewed by Ian Shirley
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